No comments about Ted Nugent/Cat Scratch Fever/Free-For-All.

1 comments about The Complete Sun Singles, Vol. 1 - From the Vaults.

1. This is the first Bear Family box in my collection with the other 5 Sun Boxes in the series to follow soon. The quality of the set is superb to say the least. Volume 1 of "The Complete Sun Singles" collects all of the Sun & and the first 4 Flip Label Singles from 1952-55. When I say all singles I mean EVERY "A" AND "B" SIDE (but for one so impossibly rare Sun single that even Bear Family's "Sun Experts" couldn't locate it - it may not have even hit the streets!!). To say that Sun Records was varied and eclectic in it's earliest releases is an understatement. It wasn't just all rockabilly & blues here..you'll also find Jazz, Gospel, Rhythm & Blues, Doo-Wop, Country, and 40's-ish Big Band Crooning among the tracks. Of course the the highlights in this set are the 10 Elvis sides on discs 3 & 4. He never really got much more rawer and rockin' than on these tracks...remember that old "Elvis Desert Island" quote (take these tracks and the "Memphis" Album with you). Other real highlights include 1st tracks by the late, greats Johnny Cash & Carl Perkins, The Prisonaires, Billy "The Kid" Emerson, pre-Stax Rufus Thomas Jr. as well as Blues luminaries Walter Horton, Dr. Ross & Little Milton among many others now consigned to obscurity outside of the USA (or even Memphis TN). I'm even enjoying some of the "cowboy-country" stuff. I've found a small portion of the Blues tracks to be a bit derivative...the "B" side to Junior Parker's "Mystery Train" is basically the same song with different lyrics. However most of the blues tracks in the set really kick butt, particularly those by Doctor Ross. Like other Bear Family releases, the accompanying 68 page booklet is really beautiful & informative and is as much a highlight of this set as the music itself. Inside the booklet you'll find some great old artist photos, some of which feature Elvis, Scotty & Bill on stage circa 1954, as well as complete track by track bios to go with label shots of EVERY "A" & "B" single in the set including some wonderful depictions of early Flip 78's and their Sun alternatives for collectors to drool over. The CD's themselves have replica "Sun" labels on them.
   The music itself a real history lesson. Some of these tracks were quite successful sales wise, while others disappeared without a trace (rightly so in a few cases), so some of the music may bring the odd strange reaction, something like "what was Sam Phillips thinking recording this". Nowhere is this more evident than on (the single) Sun 208, a pair of Buddy Cunningham tracks which (in my own opinion) are basically pretty horrendous 40's style crooning, so bad that they're really funny (ridiculous funny that is!!) ...to paraphrase the booklet's authors, "this is the price one pays for being a completist". In buying this, like with a lot of "label history" type boxed sets, you've got to take the sweet with the sour. According to the writers though, Sam wasn't totally to blame on those types of tracks and they're very few and far between anyway. The eclectic nature of the set is all the more emphasised by the amazing contrast of very next tracks, Sun's 209 & 210, which were the singles released immediately following Cunningham's "efforts"... Elvis Presley's first 2 singles "That's All Right (Mama)" and "Good Rockin' Tonight"!!
   Remastered from the ORIGINAL Tapes, finding all of these tracks probably amounted to a real archival dig. However Bear Family are meticulous with the "honesty" of the sound and it is raw and gutsy to say the least. I'm still wading my way through this set but I'm also looking forward to the remainder of the series. While the set may seem a bit pricey, it's a Bear Family product and having seen other examples of their work, I can attest that value for money is never an issue with this company. I recommend it to collectors interested the history of Rhythm & Blues/Rock music. If you love Boxed Sets like me, then this is really worth having.

No comments about Beckology.

No comments about The Complete Buddy Holly.

1 comments about Play Guitar With The Ventures, Vols. 1-4 & 7.

1. Nice redo of LP's - good sounding tracks, BUT the CD boxed set did not include the diagrams. Includes all volumes of Play Guitar with Ventures, 1,2,3,4 & 7. In case you are wondering the Ventures did not do volumes 5 & 6. Those volumes were done other artists, Chet Atkins and some else I am not familiar with.

1 comments about The Joe Meek EP Collection Box.

1. One more instance here of Amazon truncating collections and multi-disk box sets in the download section. Just in case you are not aware, the CD version of this boxed collection has *twelve compact discs* (and an informative booklet), compared to the 2 disc's worth re-compilation here via downloads. Sure you save $, but you do that by losing 25% of this collection's tracks. The physical CD's in this collection only have 4 tracks on them, hence the "EP" part of this boxed set's title. Who is the allegedly critical ear who gets to decide / edit / whittle down multiple-disc collections for the download service? I'd like a word with 'em. Your download dollars get you a pre-selected collection consisting of the material from discs 3,4,5,6,7, 9 and 10, completely skipping the hard-to-find Houston Wells and Heinz sets and all of the "I Hear A New World" material. Meekfans will want to spend the extra $ for the CD version.

1 comments about Bitter Tears/Blood, Sweat And Tears/Ring Of Fire.

1. This 3 CD box is a must-have for all music fans. It's not country music - actually it's just music which sounds country. Two of these records - Bitter Tears and Blood, Sweat & Tears - are among Cash's first concept albums. Bitter Tears is an album sung from an Indian's perspective - song by song Cash is revealing the nature and feelings of America's most oppressed minority (which once wasn't a minority) - the Native Americans. The album was co-written by an Indian, Peter LaFarge, author of such hits as "The Ballad of Ira Hayes", or sadly ironic and rare pearls as "Custer". Blood, Sweat & Tears provides us with another concept - songs of a hard working man. Cash tells us stories about poor, hard working people, but avoids adding too much sugar. These are touching tales such as "The Legend of John Henry's Hammer" - a nearly 9 minutes long story of a hammer-swinger, or "Casey Jones", the "good engineer to be laying dead". The albums are among the first concept albums in music history, and that's why they also might be worth listening to. The third album - The Ring of Fire - is a collection of Cash's early hits from his early Columbia years, and includes such gems as "The Ring of Fire" or "Bonanza", and - occompanied by those two concept albums - gives us a larger view at the first 5 years of Cash at Columbia, and at the music that - from our 21st century view - was beyond its time. A must-have!

No comments about The Definitive Anthology of the Small Faces.

1 comments about The Best on Stage 1970-1985.

1. This is a three cd set recorded live at Knebworth in 1985, and Stockholm in 1970. The stuff from 85 sounds like the Nobody's Perfect album, but Gillan sounds 10 times better. Sound quality is great except for a bit of delay and slap back. The material from Stockholm is amazing, an outstanding live recording of Child in Time, when Ian Gillan still had his incredible vocal tone. Highly recommended for the Ian Gillan or Deep Purple fanatic.

No comments about Complete Sun Singles, Vol. 5.